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Sad Day: HTC Not Planning on “Nexus Edition” One

The announcement during yesterday’s I/O keynote that showed off the “Nexus Edition” Samsung Galaxy S4 surprised a lot of people. It was as if Google listened to what we have been saying forever – we want great hardware with stock Android and we want it now! Of course, minds started spinning over the possibilities, but HTC quickly put on the brakes by saying they have no plans for a Nexus Edition One.

In a statement to TechnoBuffalo, HTC said they are, “not currently planning a ‘Nexus Edition’ of the HTC One.” It is unfortunate, but makes sense considering that they already have a developer edition of the device that comes with an unlocked bootloader. That makes it fairly easy for you to throw on stock Android, but a Nexus Edition would have been exciting to see.

HTC loses money every quarter and here is another outlet to sell your phones and you say “no thanks”? They can’t afford to say no. Eventually they will be out of the phone making business if they keep this up.

Geekout

that’s basically what i’ve been wishing for since my marriage with Google/Android. my DREAM phone

JeffColorado

HTC is determined to die as quickly as possible. I am so glad I no longer have their anchor around my neck. The Rezound was the last good phone they made.

Fred

Yup that phone was awesome

Turb0wned

An HTC ONE Google edition would have been badass. Still till this day, the Nexus One was the best phone. Ether way, I installed CM10.1 yesterday on my One and quickly missed alot of things on sense 5. People that keep bashing sense 5 without using it should really try it or shut up.

Remember that the Galaxy S4 shown at I/O this year is a ‘Google Edition’ phone, not a Nexus phone. Concept is the same (great hardware with AOSP), but don’t get it confused with the Nexus lines of phones. There’re a lot of ‘Nexus’ words being thrown around, which is not correct.
Also, I’ve heard that this phone isn’t as great as the Nexus 4. People saying ‘it feels rushed’ meaning it’s not as polished as the Nexus 4, for what that’s worth.

Steve Benson

This should be thought of as a Nexus phone. Pure Android, updated by Google, not Samsung. Sold unlocked, through the Play Store. Hugo Barra himself describes this phone as a “Nexus user experience.” Even if this technically isn’t called a Nexus, that’s what it is to Google.

And I have no clue where you heard the phone isn’t as great as the Nexus 4? The reviews so far have been excellent. Gorgeous display, great form factor and feel, beastly performance and stellar camera. The Nexus 4 was awesome, but the GS4 kicks the crap out of it. Add pure Android to the GS4 out of the box and you have the dream device people have been demanding for the past 3 years.

“Nexus user experience” is not a Nexus phone. Yes, it runs AOSP, but it’s not a Nexus phone. Updates come from Samsung through Google, not from Google themselves (difference being there’s no carrier middle man holding up the process.) Also, at $649, you can almost buy 2 N4s. SD card – Dont care. Removable battery – if the battery life is decent to begin with, don’t care.
The S4 is a great phone by itself, but I don’t think this ‘Google Edition’ is worth it.

I did watch the announcement. All of it. But apparently I’m not getting through to you, so just forget it.

Richard Yarrell

Man talk about talking out the ”SIDE OF YOUR NECK” Nobody had a clue this was coming at all now you have this crap posted in a comment. Give it a REST my friend the fact that GOOGLE and SAMSUNG made a device of this stature say a lot about what Google feels about Samsung and how Samsung feels about Google. This is exactly why Mr. Larry Paige and Mr. J.K. Shin was meeting in Korea for these last hand full of weeks. This opens up a great possible future for a yearly situation where Samsung can produce a product of this standard which only offers people options at its best. MORE STORAGE, LTE, INDUSTRY LEADING CAMERA, and BANGING HARDWARE. What more can anyone want. There may be a Galaxy S5 Google addition NEXT YEAR…Samsung may have shown other manufacturers the way…

squiddy20

1. Love the fact that you use double apostrophes despite the fact that there’s a quote mark button/key on every software and hardware qwerty keyboard. This is 2013. Get with the times.
2. A whole day before I/O, all the tech blogs spread the rumor about the stock Android S4. To say that “nobody had a clue this was coming at all” is just plain wrong. What a moron.

Fattie McDoogles

Lol that’s a terrible dream. You want that camera with none of the software enhancements to make it worth while? I understand wanting stock Android on more devices, but with switching phones like that to stock you lose a of the good things about that phone as well as the bad.

shooter50

Nothing matches the brilliance of the HTC one screen. All others look pale in comparison. My last 3 phones were Samsung (s3, note 2 and s4) and I loved them all but I had to switch after seeing the one.

edwoordd

FML :(…. Well still gonna have my gnex until something good comes out.

If I’m not mistaken (and I haven’t used the phone, so I very well could be) but the HTC One Developer Edition is the same exact phone as the regular One but with an unlocked bootloader. That means TouchWiz is installed and whatever else they normally put on there. A ‘Google Edition’ One wouldn’t have TouchWiz or anything outside of AOSP installed by default.

You can install ALL your own ROMs you want, but you won’t get the fully functional, stable status that you would get with official support, unless the OEM grants you access to proprietary blobs and sources. A ROM is not something you just slap on a device and get done with. If it was that easy, there would be a stable, fully functional CM/AOSP/AOKP build for every single device out there.

Are you retarded or just don’t understand the concept of stock, vanilla Android?

matti861

HTC drops the ball again. $649 is alot for a phone but if it was the HTC one then I would have made the jump. Do they want to fail or something?

Havoc70

Obviously HTC still hasnt learned what the people want. Nexus one would have been a sweet phone.

Tim242

The Nexus One already existed. It was the first Nexus phone.

dylan84

I wonder why they don’t just take the already awesome Developer Edition and work with Google to get stock Android on the thing. I mean, that’s all that Samsung did with the S4. It seems like HTC insists on shooting themselves in the foot continuously.

moe6

The only thing that would’ve made me upgrade from a Nexus 4 would’ve been a HTC One Nexus edition :(.

*success kid* money saved

Justin Barrett

I’d like to meet the person at HTC making these decisions:

“No need to put this phone on Verizon…”

“Nexus version of our phone? Naw.”

It’s like they’re trying to go under.

Tim242

I’m no HTC fan. But, you do realize that Verizon chooses which phones to carry, right?

sirmeili

Yes, but if HTC says they won’t make one, no matter how much Verizon wants or doesn’t want it doesn’t matter. It could very well have come down to HTC only wanting to make a GSM device like the Nexus 4 is.

Tim242

HTC has been making GSM/CDMA devices since they began manufacturing the Palm Treo. I don’t think that is an issue.

Lol. If Verizon wants The One or their own version of it they will get it. This was completely Verizon’s call, they passed on The One most likely to not hurt sales of their not very old htc flagship DNA. Htc will dance to Verizon’s tune, not the other way around.

It wasn’t htc’s decision to not launch this phone on Verizon. It was Verizon’s decision. For the most part the carriers decide which phones they are going to carry.

Weber

Hence the word “carrier”…

TheRobotCow

Verizon needs a new nexus, my galaxy nexus is becoming a pain to own.

Eric

Probably not a nexus version of the HTC One, but they could still be making an HTC Nexus device…wishful thinking at least.

PhoenixPath

“That makes it fairly easy for you to throw on stock Android, but a Nexus Edition would have been exciting to see.”

Well, easy? They still can’t get half of the device’s functionality working with AOSP. Having HTC work out the kinks in getting AOSP fully functional on this thing would have been a *huge* boon to devs. Now they have to continue picking at it and hacking the heck out of it to get it to operate even somewhat reasonably.

Expected, but still a major disappointment. There was some small glimmer of hope that the S4 bit would have sparked a fire.

…still waiting for a non-htcdev unlock for it as well. If bone-stock is not a recovery-option, unlocking the bootloader is not an option. (personally)

Blue Sun

An HTC One without Sense is a HTC I would have picked up in a heartbeat. First thing I thought of after the S4 Nexus announcement during the keynote is that I would have loved to have seen HTC do this with the One.

MichaelFranz

this would be a great idea if all the manufactures made a nexus edition of the top tier phones. Just saying.

Needs to be on more than T-Mo and att, isolating Sprint and Vzw isn’t going to help, especially since vzw has 1/3 of the U.S. on it’s carrier. If HTC offered a stock only, it would sell more than the sg4 version.

I think each manufacturer should release 1 stock android phone along side their main lines every year. Give people an option to have their hardware manufacture produce a stock version for people who have their favorite manufacturer. Won’t cost them anything to put stock on their hardware.

The problem is that CDMA is proprietary technology. They are making GSM phones because that is the universal standard. Once VZW goes to VoLTE, we may see unlocked phones going there, but not until CDMA is dead.

Carl Henriques

Won’t cost them anything but I bet you dollars to doughnuts that option would end up costing us

Havoc70

I thought that was offered by Google but it doesn’t seem to be any of the Manufacturers are interested, too bad Pure Google on a phone would be a nice step for any Android Device

I can totally agree with that. It should’ve been HTC doing this and instead, they’re saying “No, we won’t give you what you want.. deal with it! And while we’re at it, we won’t support devs by allowing them to use our code to port AOSP over with full functionality. No. We’re morons who like to go backwards and stick a 3-button menu bar on the bottom AFTER we removed it on last year’s One X.”.

i was at my local verizon store recently and i mentioned to the manager that i really wanted the one but they dont have it. he interrupted me and said “we’re getting it, we’re definately getting it, they just havent told us when yet.”

If we learned anything by the Nexus debacle leading up to the release on VZW, we learned in-store VZW people don’t know jack. They probably read it on a rumor site that was cross-posted from 2 other tech blogs.

TheKaz1969

I agree. I had a manager there tell me they definitely weren’t getting it…

James

*definitely

flosserelli

They will also piss on your leg and tell you it’s raining if that will get more money out of you.

Ian Smith

would have to deal with those physical buttons though :/

dannyWHITE

…

htowngtr

Stock android but drivers won’t work without tweaking.

cjohn4043

This is One bad day for some…

TellMe

Still waiting for full spec on the s4 developer device, specifically if it’ll have LTE band 3 850Mhz..

Steve Benson

Is that Verizon? If so, not happening…

Shane Redman

WHERE IS AN UPDATED NEXUS 7!!!!! **screamed I while in tears**

ReturnOfTheMack

Chill man. Google is probably going to do the smart thing and update all of their Nexus devices at the same time later this year.

coolsilver

Tell that to my Thunderbolt with a USB port wearing down and no Jelly Bean

Shane Redman

but….I gambled and sold my 8GB N7 in hopes that it would come for I/O. Now I want my little 7 inch monster back….guess i’ll just get the 32GB model *sigh*

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